If you don't know these words, please ask your Primary 5 child!

Ahem. Today, you will sit a vocabulary test, so please put away your dictionary. You are not allowed to Google the answers to the 24 words below either. You may begin now:

Anemometer
Bedlam
Beguile
Buccaneer
Diurnal
Domicile
Eminence
Implicit
Indict
Manslaughter
Navvy
Osseous
Philately
Piteous
Plaudits
Podgy
Pursuant
Scabbard
Suffuse
Supervening
Temperance
Tenable
Umbrage
Unequivocal

So, how many words in the list above did you see for the first time (ie, you were clueless about them!), let alone get the meaning right? Well, guess what, this list is pitched at the level of Singapore's Primary 5 pupils...

Yup, the New Paper on Sunday (Jan 13) uncovered this absurd parody of school learning. One parents' website helpfully provided the NP story's list and a video clip too:

http://sg.theasianparent.com/how-many-of-these-p5-words-do-you-know/#

Let's just take the word "supervene". For goodness' sake, how many adults (other than lawyer types) even ever use this word in their lifetime?

Anyway, here's a definition, and examples of how to use this "cheem" word:

http://websters.yourdictionary.com/supervene

http://sentence.yourdictionary.com/supervene

I especially like this example below:

• It has also been claimed that modal truths supervene on non-modal ones, and that general truths supervene on non-modal ones, and that general truths supervene on particular truths.

It makes one blur like sotong, man!